


My Prince

by Pershi



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: M/M, Planet Vegeta AU, Prompt Fic, Self-Reflection, kakavege week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-14
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2018-06-08 08:49:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6847768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pershi/pseuds/Pershi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kakarot spends his life learning that some things were just not meant to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Prince

**Author's Note:**

> For Prompt 26: Planet Vegeta AU of Kakavege Week. Frieza didn't happen.

The first thing I think when you mention my dear prince is his boots.

White, small, simple. He is stronger and you are weaker. He is better and you are worse. He is the quintessence of the best of the best. He is superior and you are inferior, in every which way.

From afar I see him atop steps at the end of the throne room, his small physique barely visible behind towering hulks of saiyans in front of me. His wild hair juts upwards towards the gods, almost in disrespect as he questions them with his power. He has fearsome strength, but the more admirable is his mastery of his skills to execute them to their greatest extent, while never losing control over himself.

Up close, it is his boots I stare at. If he is not in an elevated position, then it is standard that we keep our gaze down. We dare not look him in the face.

I liked being close.

It began in my pre-adolescent years, a blindingly hot day for training. At the academy we performed drills after drills, paired up to spar, and were rewarded and punished for performance. It was the midday break when people began chattering more than usual, a familiar tension in the air. “MAKE WAY FOR THE PRINCE,” the academy president bellowed, and we split like water and he like a godsent ball of divinity.

He stood before us next to his bodyguard, in his royal cape and spandex suit with the latest armor, and of course, his bold white boots. His gaze was intense, but held a drop of amusement, and as he spoke, I listened, just like everyone else. It wasn’t rare to see the prince, but it was always us who went to him, never the other way around. I watched my friends stiffen in anticipation, and I became excited as well.

For the rest of the training he sat over us, shrouded by the shadows of the shade as we baked in the ruthless sun. I felt a flower of disdain bloom inside my chest, towards him, towards royalty. They were born with privileges while others had to earn them, they were spoiled without ever asking for it. But it wasn’t my place to question them.

I was surprised when all of a sudden he jumped down from the roofed balcony of our main school building and landed in between us, his crimson cape flowing after him that reflected a glowing orange under the sunlight. We backed away and watched, waiting for him to say something, do something.

He smirked.

“Which one of you would like to challenge me?”

It was quiet all around, and even the instructor seemed dumbstruck. But he continued. “Whoever lands me on my back will be rewarded equipment and land. Loser gets nothing but a sore back, maybe.”

Nobody made a move, and the air began to thicken. Sweat dripped down my chin as I looked around. Quiet murmurs and whispers passed around, but no one volunteered. I felt anxiety build up in my gut and swallowed something thick stuck in my throat, then stepped forward. “Prince Vegeta, your highness.” I bowed and stared at the smoldering cement ground beneath our feet.

“What is your name?” he asked, and gestured for me to stand upright again. I did, and my eyes found their way to his dark, penetrating orbs. They were so dark, darker than any other saiyan’s. Was that a characteristic of the royal line?

“Kakarot, your highness.” Quiet chatter rose in the crowd, and a circle formed around the two of us. The prince is three years older than me, but we were about the same height back then. He lingers on my name then folds his arms, gracefully but arrogantly, taunting me to fight.

“A third-class, it sounds like. Well, you best prepare yourself,” he said as he slid into combat position, with his left arm extended forwards before his head, and his right on his side in a loose fist. His legs parted, and he lowered himself in a steady stance.

My pulse quickened as I fell into the standard fighting stance as well. Left hand forward, right hand on the side, feet apart for balance. We stared at each other head on, his glare like electric, the air dense with unseen energy.

I lunged.

A simple movement of his arm and he blocked the punch effortlessly. With a cry I attacked again, throwing punch after punch, all of which he’d dodged. Energy focused in my right arm, I drew back and drove it to his stomach. But it missed and he was gone.

I whirled around to see him land from a midair flip. In the blink of an eye, an acute pain jolted my bones starting from the bottom of my ribs, and I felt sick. I was stumbling, falling backwards, but he grabbed my hand and suddenly I was flying up, higher into the sky and dropping, and I thought “this is it, I’m going down” when he raised his leg and caught me straight in the gut with a kick. Nothing but saliva and a strangled yelp came out, and I was thrust back into the air, softer this time, and landed painfully on my knees. He’d done that on purpose. He wasn’t done with me.

“Come on, _Kakarot_. Is that all you got?” I heard him jeer.

Trembling, my hands pushed against the dusty ground and I righted myself. Was that skill or luck? It was hard to believe someone so young would to be able to pull off such speed and precision, but this is the prince, who received special training. I just didn’t want to believe the gap between us was so big. I tried again.

I dashed to the side, then side-stepped to change my course, charging at him with full speed. I pulled my fist back again and watched his eyes calculate my moves, and just as my punch was about to collide with his face which would no doubt miss, my body twisted and hands found the floor, and I kicked my legs up to deliver a blow under his chin.

That clatter of his teeth was _so_ satisfying to hear.

As he stumbled back, I couldn’t help but grin at my work. I’d hit the prince.

It was wiped clean off when just a second later a fist sailed under my jaw and a flurry of knees and feet and elbows ground into my stomach, my sides. Just as I was about to recover and start returning the attacks, he caught my hand and twisted it, and red hot pain exploded in my bones. Any more pressure and they’d break. But he instead threw me in the air again and howled his battle cry, spinning and driving his elbow straight to my chest, and I flew down like a bullet and crashed to the searing hot earth.

 _Crack._ Was that my bone or the ground?

Then I was staring up at the white-hot sky that blinded my eyes, wheezing for air, limbs heavy and body sore. I was on my back. I was amazed.

Suddenly the sky went dark. No, that was someone’s shadow. Vegeta, Prince Vegeta, towered over me, eyes as dark as before, smirk stretching his lips as before. I tried hard to focus, and saw a small scratch beneath his jaw, and I choked out a laugh. He hasn’t broken a sweat and still looked perfect. Then there’s me.

Wow.

“Nice try” was all he gave as acknowledgement before he moved on to the rest of the students. He blew through them like leaves, defeating one after the other, until eventually everyone had ended on the ground, facing the sky with a pain-twisted face. The whole time I was admiring and observing his moves in awe, and when it was finally time for him to leave, I was at the front of the crowd when we saw him off, and as I bowed, it was all I could do to study his dirtied boots.

I was elated and inspired that day, and I trained the rest of the afternoon and evening away in high spirits. I trained when I got home, I trained after dinner, I trained before sleep on my bed. Prince Vegeta was my new goal.

Day after day I worked hard, striving to up my speed, my power, my endurance, my calculations. I was a confident guy, but the prince’s attitude was a whole different level. He had great pride of his abilities and who he was, and his every move reflected his self-assurance. He respected himself, and I respected him. I began attending public announcements more often, just to see if he had changed, if I could learn anything new. (Always from afar, though I’d love to be close. I just haven’t earned it yet.) As his father speaks, he is the only thing I can focus on. Standing straight with such poise, fists by his sides, his expression stoical, revealing nothing. I wondered if I could be the same in a short three years.

Then time began to pass.

Three years, five years, eight…He seemed to be growing at an exponential rate, while my powers grew linearly. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t catch up, not in a million years. As I admired him from afar, he was going on dangerous and top tier missions only adults and experts went, and I was stuck doing drills and low tier missions like clean up after a planet wipe-out. I became envious of his sparring partners – I wanted to be the one punching his perfect angular face. I wanted to be the one beating the life out of him. I wanted to be the one causing him to cry out in pain. But here I am, doing useless housework, practicing useless drills, a third-class battling with third-class warriors. I was a joke. I could never be on the same level as the mighty proud Prince.

As I grew into my adolescent years, I began having a series of similar dreams. I dreamed that I had not grown up here at Planet Vegeta, but had been sent off to a distant planet named “Earth.” I was alone but discovered by a hermit, I met many strange friends with strange customs, and trained under powerful “humans” and learned curious techniques. I even took on a mate and had children, and I was happy. Then my brother Raditz appeared, and so did some other saiyans. Vegeta, and even Nappa, his body guard. I fought against them. But the rest were wiped out by a tyrant…It was hard to believe that our entire warrior race was made extinct by a single being. I almost couldn’t believe it.

When I fought against Vegeta, I was still weaker than him. But he was glorious. I had the privilege of fighting against him just one on one again, no rules to shorten the battle. A fight to the death. I watched him strain under my pressure, choke on his blood that I had beaten out of him, scream in rage at my spilling of his royal ichor. It was unbelievable that I was on par with him, my potent prince, and that I was against him. I was disobeying him, but our battle was something I’d wished for all these years of staying loyal to him.

With the help of my friends, he was defeated. It was my duty to finish him off. But I let him go. Maybe it was because some part of my mind is still devoted to him, despite being in a completely different universe.

Over the course of a few years we became rivals instead of enemies, we fought to become stronger, better than ourselves, better than each other. And somehow we’d grown closer, the term “friends” almost legitimate for description. I got to the see the ugly side of him, the side that isn’t always right, isn’t always best. His hatred, his weaknesses, his fears…but it just made me respect him more. It was hard to stay strong with that type of condition, knowing that you are not as strong as you believed yourself to be. It was hard to care for others after always losing the people you’ve grown close to because you were too weak.

And when I awoke, I realized how much I yearned for a simple friendship between me and him. The dream gave me a chance to interact with him without regard of our social status, and maybe by subconscious desires, I’ve become stronger than him. It was everything I’d ever wanted.

So now I was not only admiring him during the day, but dreaming about him at night.

My parents and brother have begun noticing that I blank out more often. I think about the dreams a lot. I mix the realities up. I casually toss “Vegeta” around without formal address, and speak about him as if we were familiar. I talk like I have a wife. I still have not spoken more than two sentences to him, ever since the challenge I accepted from way back then. I became scared, as they became scared for me. I needed to get him out of my life. But how could you rid yourself of your future ruler whom you see on posters and statues and paintings everywhere on the planet? How could you escape?

Then came the night, the night that changed everything. It made everything harder.

The moon was in its first quarter. It was dim, but the light was bright enough for me to see. I’d snuck out to fly around town to clear my head. I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t want to dream about him again.

I decided to take my favorite path to a nearby lake and flew over a small patch of red leaved forest on the way. The fresh scent of growing foliage and unevaporated rain calmed me down. I twirled lazily in the air with closed eyes, plummeted and rose, oscillating in a calming, rhythmic wave. I flew facing the sky, gazing at the stars, bright of the close, dim of the distant. I breathed in big gulps, emptied my lungs all the way, and repeated. The lake came into view, and I slowed to drop onto the soft mossy ground around it. _I’ll just take a quick dip, then go home._

I peeled off my spandex undershirt and shoes, and slipped my burning body into the cool water. Relief at last.

But then there was the soft sound of water slapping against water, _splish splash_ , and it didn’t come from me. I waited. _Splish splash._ Warily, I looked around and saw a dark figure with a tower of spikes atop its head and my heart nearly leaped out of my chest. What was he doing here?

The water hugged him at the shoulders and below, revealing only his prominent collar bones and lean muscles, the moon light shining only on a portion of his face, the other sides lost in darkness. He dipped down and disappeared for the longest time, then resurfaced with a gasp, his hair dripping small streams, his mouth hanging open, bringing in air, and he was exposed to the world. For a second I wondered if he lived in the water because the movement seemed so fluid.

Then he got out.

I should have looked away. I told myself I needed to look away. But I didn’t.

Bare, naked legs broke the water surface and stepped onto land, hauling the rest of his body up, back to the heavy gravity. He was soaked and the water ran off of his limbs and over the curves and bumps of his muscles, however the remaining droplets caught the bright pale light of the moon and made him glow. Scars were littered across his back and held irregular shadows. I tried to veer my eyes away from his more…private areas, but his hip protruded in such a perfect angle, my vision flowed right to the place I wanted to avoid the most. And God, he was breathtaking there. He was breathtaking everywhere.

Then he dug his heels into the earth, uprooting the moss and mud, took it in his hands and rubbed it all over his body. I watched in stupor. Then I realized he was doing everything he wasn’t allowed. Washing in the open lake, rolling in the unhygienic mud, going outside as the moon hung high. Suddenly he laughed, a high pitched, uncontrolled, indulgent laugh, and scratched viciously at his arms until they bled, tainting himself further. As his muscles ripped, he hissed and howled in joy and pain, likely from the stinging of the bacteria seeping into his new wounds.

I should go.

“Your highness?” I said. _Goddammit._

He froze, and turned to the sound. He was facing me then, his eyes wild and unreadable. “Who are you?”

 _You love making your life harder,_ I thought. “A mere third-class, sir. I mean no trouble.” I made to take my leave, but his intense gaze nailed me to my spot. His eyes narrowed marginally, hardly noticeable in the dark of the night, but I saw. Black and distant, eyes he kept from childhood. “You’ll tell no one.” I nodded, “yes, your highness” on my lips as I climbed out of the suddenly freezing lake, grabbed my clothes and left hastily. Only when I passed the forest again did I notice the swelling in my groin as I remembered his haunting visage and ravishing form, and I was horrified.

When I got home, I dried off and slipped into bed quietly, slurring “it’s just a phase, it’s just a phase” over and over again like a mantra, and fell into a restless sleep. I dreamed about him that night, and woke up with stains on my underwear. I teared in shame, then harder at my weak behavior. That’s when I finally thought: _I’m in love with him._

It was a fleeting concept, my conscious touching the idea like a kid poking a large scary unknown and running away. But I could not run away. I had hid from the thought for far too long. I am a warrior. I am to face challenges head on, I am to be strong. I whispered lowly to myself, the words only for me to hear, only for me to know:

I’m in love with him. I have romantic feelings for him. I…love Prince Vegeta.

And suddenly I started noticing negligible things about him that are so important to me. His mouth quirked slightly to the right due to him commonly smirking to that side, his left hand was steadier but his right more nimble, his eyebrows faded into thinner strands at the ends, he leaned most often on his left leg. He always swallowed before he spoke. He raised his heel first on the stepping leg before shifting the other leg forward when walking. The corners of his mouth were creased to form that small comma of space, almost like an opening to an impenetrable wall, and I wanted to kiss them. I wanted to kiss the wrinkles and creases of his face, his body, to feel them like I could see them. I wanted to be the first to give attention to the unappreciated parts of his body.

Hanging on to a shred of hope I worked harder still, to promote my status and at least be able to get closer to him than a third-class. As I grew stronger, I became more distant with my family and friends. Prince Vegeta was my goal, an aim reborn, fueled by renewed respect and a kind of lust. Lust for his attention, lust for his companionship, lust for his love.

It’s been a decade since I strove for that goal.

I’m now well known for my dedication, alacrity for tasks and missions, and my amiable personality. I trained hard, developed my own techniques, graduated from the academy, and even gained a new group of friends and admirers. I was promoted to the middle-class, and got to see my prince more often.

But that was all. I was near my limit, I knew. And no matter what the badges showed, I would always be a third-class by heart. I would always retain some of that grime the low division was born with. I was never to touch the regal rank. I was never to stain his polished shoes of the elite.

My heart wrenches as I watch him walk down the aisle, dressed in a royal blue suit embroidered in gold linings of traditional patterns. Shoulder plates sit atop his broad frame as he walks in brand new gold-tipped boots, his stately scarlet cape barely brushing against the heels. He is absolutely gorgeous. As he stands atop the altar, his gaze sweeps over the crowd of the magnificent hall, gathered for this special occasion, and he smiles. It is forced, but the audience is fooled. Or is that my wishful thinking?

The rest of the party goes down the aisle and is seated. Once they’re all settled, a sudden hush falls over, and enters a stunning woman in a white bodysuit covered in brilliant frillings over the chest and hips, similar grandiose shoulder plates bouncing on her shoulders as she gracefully sauntered down the aisle. She is magnificent. 

As they stand beside each other, they seem to radiate a majestic light. She seems to belong there, next to the great heir of the throne, and as the announcements are stated, their tails unfurl around their waist and wrap around each other’s, the symbol clear. They are officially declared as mates.

We cheer.

People stand to applaud, and begin forming a line to congratulate the couple. I join, my heart throbbing, slamming against my chest as if trying to mangle itself. Platitudes and good wishes mix together in an incoherent jumble and I blanch at the reality. When it is my turn, I look at the two up close for a short moment, short enough to remain respectful, and smile. The scratch below his jaw was long gone, but his eyes still bring back such nostalgia.

I lower my gaze again and feel an aching behind my eyes. “It is truly a match of fate. May the bond be everlasting,” I hear myself say, and I’m tearing up because I believe not a word I speak. I laugh quietly as I stare hard at the glaring boots that I’ve studied my entire life and bow to take my leave. He had changed without me, moved on before I could start. Years of hard work would only amount to a brief moment of closeness that I spend watching the lowest part of his divine being. And I knew that I would never be able to get anything greater.

So I admire my beloved prince from afar, in the place where I belong, and cry as people think I’m celebrating their joy. I admire my beloved prince from afar and seek for respite only in my dreams, for the position next to him with my tail in his, I realize, would never exist in this unforgiving world.


End file.
